Wild salmon on brink of disaster

Bears starving, sea lice out of control

PHOTO: One of the fish boats leaving the occupation site with the Kayactivists following. Susanne Lawson photo

By Susanne Lawson

NOV. 16 — I am sitting in a boat near a Marine Harvest fish farm in the Broughton Archipelago. I walk outside and the air stinks of acrid, penned Atlantic salmon and feed pellets that are continuously sprayed into the pens. The sound of the sprayers never ceases. It is depressing to see these fish leaping in the air trapped in these stinking pens. Salmon should never be in pens.

This farm has been occupied by local First Nations for almost three months now. There are multiple First Nations involved, very dedicated people.

There is a camp in the woods of kayakers standing by to help. They call themselves Kyactivists. There is another camp of people at a land-based house nearby that was built by Marine Harvest, which First Nations occupied. Marine Harvest has several land-based houses for workers, leased quite permanently (it seems) for comfort and ease of access.

These are public lands, public waters.

At the farm, five pens are empty as the protest has so far prevented more Atlantic salmon from being restocked and four are full of approximately eight-month-old fish. Marine Harvest does not have permits to restock at this time, yet are determined to go ahead.

There are about 4 to 5 boats belonging to supporters of the protest with people aboard them, providing support, transportation and warmth. The weather has been stormy, cold and wet.

First Nations people — Chiefs and their families — have maintained a presence here since August. Two young women, Molina Dawson and Karissa Glendale, in their early 20s, of the Musgmagw and Namgis First Nations, are living on the floats.

Chief Ernest Alfred and other hereditary First Nations of Alert Bay occupied Swanson Island fish farm and Wicklow fish farms this fall. Marine Harvest came in and stocked the pens in front of the Chiefs who were occupying the farm in full traditional regalia.

Seven people have set up a camp in the woods nearby, treating the area with great respect and understanding; one of them doing his doctorate in law and jurisdiction. It is a sweet space with big trees and a creek bubbling nearby.

Marine Harvest has gone to court seeking an injunction to have everyone removed. The judge has given both parties until Dec. 14th to present their case and in the meantime the First Nations agreed to remove their occupation and buildings. Marine Harvest wants to go ahead and restock the empty pens with Atlantic salmon smolts, despite First Nations objections.

The Namgis First Nations in Alert Bay

Things are at a standstill right now. Sad that nothing is preventing more Atlantic salmon and diseases to continue to prevail in B.C. waters, especially after such a concerted effort to bring about positive change to such a destructive process as fish farming. So much and so many are losing … commercial fishermen, sports fishing, families dependent on the wild salmon resource, bears, eagles, trout, marine life like seals, sea lions, and so much more.

It is impossible to weigh the values of what wild salmon have provided for the coast. Wild salmon are on the brink of disaster. Wild stocks are crashing. Alaska has closed all Chinook fishing. Bears and more have been starving on the coast. Sea lice are out of control all over the world where these farms exist and have been found on emaciated trout, ling cod, herring and more.

An application for 18 hectares of pesticide use has been made for Clayoquot Sound waters by another fish farm company, Cermaq, owned by Mitsubishi and operated out of Norway. We are all losing while others are profiting from our loss.

How far does this go? Until our amazing wild salmon are extinct? I hope for sanity to prevail. If this doesn’t turn around now, the irreplaceable loss of our wild salmon migration and all it nourishes will be one of the greatest regrets of this century.

Susanne Lawson and her late First Nations husband, Steve, have lived in Clayoquot Sound for more than 50 years. They have actively protected salmon, bears and natural habitat from mining and old growth logging. She’s an artist and writer.

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charles blackhall
on 11/23/2017 at 4:01 pm

Don’t let this happen on your watch…I was there in the 70′ and 80’s when the fish farms were coming in and the war in the woods was distracting most of us from their proliferation. You sure could smell them though as you travelled around the sheltered waters of Clayoquat sound. Stories of fish kill dumpings, disease outbreaks, escapes and antibiotic fish feed were in the air as we focused on stopping multinational logging companies from cutting 24/7 all the old growth in the region.
This issue of fish farms and the implications for the wild fisheries is been brewing for some time and the time for action is now…or we will see the loss of not just the wild salmon, but of the ecological system that sustains us all in these Pacific northwest watershed systems.